On the Other Side
by greatadjectives
Summary: A family--devastated. Two worlds--divided. In this larger than life tale gathering the forces of war, religion, love, and loss, its a battle between life and death. In the end, which will prevail: good, or evil?
1. Chapter 1

She was only sixteen when they killed her.  
The way the world was supposed to work was that we would stay on our side, and they would stay on theirs. It was only a matter of time before one of us broke the promise—it was only a matter of time before someone died.  
That someone was my sister.  
Anywhere east of the Mississippi River belonged to the night crawlers. The vicious demons that gnarled and crept and did nothing of value to this world. The sickening ghouls of the night that terrorized and drank with the thought that their insatiable thirst might be quenched. Anywhere east was quarantine zone; a place that no one went, unless they were armed and dangerous. Anywhere east was a desert of the damned.  
Everywhere west of the Mississippi River belonged to us. Our economy thrived, the sun shone brightly and everyone seemed to be in a general bright disposition. It was a consensus that the divide had been necessary and had turned out to be a _good_ thing. Before the divide had been made, those diseased things had been living in homes next to us, driving in cars next to us, and voting right along side us.  
Until the war started—and until the war ended not twenty years ago now. We had put them in their place, given them their own piece of land and left them. We had moved on, and hadn't heard so much as a murmur from them for the past twenty years.  
But now my sister was dead—vanished into the gray abyss that had been calling her name.

It was a Monday afternoon, and instead of being in class I was sitting in the directors office of the funeral parlor with my parents and older brother. My mother and father had, appropriately, worn black since the untimely death of my younger sister. Kieran had been officially pronounced dead by the authorities the day before, and we were at the funeral parlor setting up plans for her shotgun funeral. It was going to be quick and discreet before the paparazzi showed up like a field of fans. It wasn't every day that this happened.  
"Mrs. Duff, the price of the cherry casket is the most economically savvy. It is the exact casket I'd choose for my loved one…"  
My mother, Elizabeth, dabbed the corner of her eye with a handkerchief. Ever since Kieran had disappeared, my mother had been inconsolable and my father had stopped talking altogether. I hadn't seen him cry yet. All he did was stare off into space as if he was watching Kieran walk away. Mother just sat around the house, the blinds and curtains closed around her sobbing into Kieran's clothes.  
For solace, I only had my brother to turn to. Callum was three years older than me and had moved back home after graduating from college a few months earlier. He had had trouble finding a job, and had decided instead to find a band. He had taken to practicing in the garage instead of searching for a job and was happy now. I could see that his smile had broadened and that he was enjoying himself—not that my parents noticed or cared. They had decided when Callum was born near the end of the war that it was his duty to become part of the National Guard. It was his duty to protect people like us from things like them. Callum never liked the National Guard, and never liked that we lived so close to the river, either. When Kieran disappeared, Callum stopped playing in his band and picked up National Guard brochures.  
Kieran disappeared on Thursday night.  
Friday, Saturday, and for the better part of Sunday, I sat on the corner of Callum's bed, listening to the silence as he looked up the specifics of the National Guard. The only time we ever exchanged a word was when we heard the doorbell ring early into the evening on Sunday. He and I looked at each other, and then he said, "Ready to hear some bad news?" I told him I was ready to get this hell over with. We walked downstairs, received the news that Kieran was no longer with us, and then walked back upstairs. Callum picked up one of his brochures, and I continued to stare at his poster of the long-ago band of the Rolling Stones. He was better company than my parents. Mom let out small wails from her dungeon in the living room, and father had barricaded himself in the master bedroom.  
We didn't eat, we didn't sleep, and we didn't progress with our lives until Mom had walked into Callum's room earlier this morning and told me to get dressed in black. We were going to figure out how to bury Kieran.  
It's strange, planning a funeral when the body of the deceased isn't even there. I wondered why Mom was even bothering to pick out and pay for a casket. We didn't have Kieran's body to put in it.  
Everything else had been arranged. It was going to be a strictly family ceremony with ourselves and the grandparents that were able to understand what was going on. No one else was invited because it was too much trouble. Afterwards, we'd have a brief luncheon in honor of the dearly departed and then that would be it. The casket would be put in the family plot and Kieran would be erased from out memories.  
"Mrs. Duff?" The director of the funeral parlor asked, gesturing to the photographs of the caskets in front of him. "Make a selection and we'll make sure it looks nice for the funeral tomorrow."  
My mother looked up through her veil of tears, "The cherry will be fine. Won't it be fine, John?"  
My father turned from looking out the window to looking at my mother. His eyes didn't seem to register what was going on.  
"Don't you like the cherry? Cal? Roxie?" Mother turned around, her eyes hopeful.  
"Yeah, Mom," Callum chirped in. "It looks real nice. Something Kieran would've liked, you know?"  
I nodded, and gave a brief smile—the best I could produce given the circumstances.  
What no one seemed to realize or understand was that I was the closest one to Kieran. I had been her rock, the one she had gone to when she had problems. And I had been the last one to see her alive.


	2. Chapter 2

Kieran had gone to bed early that Thursday night, complaining of a headache that hadn't stopped for a week. She and I shared a room, so when I was ready to go to bed for the night, I had gone up to our room and was walking around it as quietly as I could, until I realized Kieran was sitting up in bed in the dark watching me.   
"Kier! You scared me!"   
Her eyes were unaffected. "I'm sorry."   
"Is your headache better?" I asked, traversing the room and sitting at our vanity. I turned on a light and went to work putting my hair in braids to sleep in. I had just showered and when I braided my hair before bed, it was full of soft waves in the morning.  
 Kieran's eyes had followed me in the dark. "It's worse."  
 "Worse?" I saw her vague reflection in the mirror, "do you want some Tylenol?"  
 She shook her head. "I'm going to go for a run."  
 I chuckled, "Oh, keep dreaming, Kier. You know it's against the law to go running after dark. It's dangerous out there. Not to mention you're not feeling well."  
 She had already spun her legs out of bed and was standing. She was already dressed in her running outfit. She walked over to the vanity and grabbed a hair tie from the counter top.  
I looked up at my younger sister illuminated faintly by the lamplight.  "Kieran—no. You're not allowed to go out. If you get caught you'll—you'll…"  
 "I'll what?"  
 I swallowed, a ripple of fear crossing my chest. "You know what's out there." We were six miles away from the river, but they flew fast. They were shadows that couldn't be seen and couldn't be heard and if we weren't careful….   
In the day time, Kieran often ran to the border, hung out at the guards office for a while with some of her friends that had applied to the guard, and then would run back towards the end of the day. Thus, she was in incredible shape that I was more than often envious of.  
 Kieran raised her eyebrows, an act of defiance. "I'm going to go running. I'll be back in a few hours."    
She spun on her heel and was about to leave the room when I stood up from my seat, "Kieran! You can't go out there."  
 She gripped the door frame, her body arching back as if she were being pulled out of the door frame. "I have to…" she moaned.  
 My brows furrowed, "What?"  
 Her head snapped towards the window at the end of the hall. "What did you say to me?" She hissed, her vision hooked on whatever was outside.   
"Kieran!" I grabbed her hand but she pulled it away from me with ease. She took a few steps towards the stairs, her wary eyes looking out the window. "I…I gotta go, Roxie." She turned and flew down the stairs quicker than I've seen her ever go before, and was out the door before I could get to the top of the stairs.   
I ran down to the bottom of the stairs, cracked open the door and watched as my sixteen year old sister vanished into the fog.   
It isn't easy planning a funeral for my sister whom I love. It isn't easy planning a funeral for someone when you don't have their body.   
It isn't easy living, knowing your sister has gone to the other side of the river, never to return. It isn't easy, knowing the sister that you once knew has been replaced by the night crawlers that we, as humans, have all come to fear.

One week ago was when this all started. Monday afternoon, I came back from a long lecture at school and had collapsed on our over-sized couch, turned on some trashy TV and opened a bag of Chee-Z's. Moments later, Kieran walked in, her face drawn.  
 "Hey Kiera," I called from my lounging position on the couch. Our parents were still at work and wouldn't return home for a few more hours. Callum was in the garage with his new friends, playing some horrid music that was someday going to make them millions. During the afternoons, Kieran and I would sit in front of the TV and laugh at all of the horrible things they put on TV these days.   
She turned her face to me. I recall her looking sad and distressed—the lines of her face etched deep with worry. She was paler than usual, but held the typical glamour of herself. Her long hair was curled, her outfit still looked as good as it did when we had purchased it months before, and her makeup was flawless. It was easy to say that I was jealous of my long and thin sister. "What's up?" I asked. "How'd that test go in calculus?"  
 "Shitty, of course." She stumbled into the living room and fell onto the couch beside me with a heavy sigh. "I feel like I've been hit by a truck."  
 "Too much drinking?" I giggled, tossing a Chee-Z at her.  
 "I have had this headache ever since I came back from running yesterday." She frowned. "I couldn't concentrate at all during school today. It's like a horrible throbbing pain and I—" I raised my eyebrows in question.  She glanced at me, and smiled. "It's nothing that a good nights sleep won't handle." She reached into the back of Chee-Z's, "And maybe a few of these."  
 If only I had realized that that moment was the last time that I would ever see Kieran act as her usual self. If only I had realized that this headache was a part of something greater than any of us could have imagined.   
The next day, Kieran was worse. She pressed the snooze button six times on her alarm clock before suddenly dashing to the closet, throwing on an odd assortment of clothing and running out of the house just before classes commenced. When she returned home from school, Kieran continued to complain about her headache. She popped a few pills, changed into her running clothes and left—hoping that a jog would ease the pain. Kieran didn't return home until well after dark, being escorted by the National Guard. She had been seen lounging at the rivers edge, chewing her nails.   
Wednesday, it was almost impossible for Kieran to even get out of bed. She turned off her alarm entirely and refused to eat. She claimed that it was "against all normality" to want to eat chicken noodle soup—which had been her favorite meal before. All Wednesday Kieran slept in bed, and everyone found it difficult to even stir her. When anyone did manage to wake her up, she viciously hissed at them that she was not in the mood to associate with anyone. By eight in the evening, Kieran woke up, still with a headache but feeling "much better", or so she claimed. She remained up for the rest of the evening, and by the time school rolled around on Thursday she was nearly catatonic.   
I managed to finally wake her up around noon on Thursday, and forced her to drink a glass of orange juice, which she promptly vomited up. I ditched my classes for the rest of the day and called my parents. They set up an appointment for Kieran at the doctor the next morning.  
All Thursday, Kieran was acting difficult, to say the least. When she wasn't sleeping, she was moaning and groaning about something. She spent most of her time awake in the bathroom, vomiting up whatever she had left in her system. She was pale, and furious and not even willing to take any more medicine. I had managed to get her to drink a glass of water before my parents came home from work, but that, too, she vomited up. For the majority of the day, Kieran lay in bed, sobbing about something I couldn't decipher.   
Around five, I left her alone to go about my normal day. Kieran, alone upstairs, hardly made a noise the rest of the day.   
And then Thursday night happened. She went out for a run at about one in the morning and none of us ever saw her ever again.   
Of course we went straight out to the National Guard, who promised that they would return her to our safekeeping. Kieran, they said, couldn't have gotten far.   
She had gotten father than we imagined. And it wasn't until that Sunday afternoon that our horrible thoughts were confirmed; Kieran had crossed the bridge.   
After my parents, Callum and I returned from purchasing Kieran's casket to be entombed the next day, we drifted off into the caves we had created for ourselves. I had chosen solace in the room where Kieran and I had spent happier days. Our room—my room—was eerily quiet. I found it difficult to concentrate on anything. I checked my email, but my inbox was flooded with an assortment of condolences from people that I didn't care to read. I didn't want to hear about my sister's death anymore than I needed to. I tried painting my nails, but no color seemed satisfying—most of the bottles were Kieran's anyway. I ended up laying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.   
Well into the night, I still hadn't fallen asleep. I tossed restlessly in my bed, doing anything to avoid looking at Kieran's bed across the room.   
My thoughts were always centered on Kieran. I had wished better for her than what she ended up getting. I had seen promise in my young and-- I shot up in bed and almost died of fright. There, hoisting open the window, was Kieran.


	3. Chapter 3

"Kieran!" I gasped, scrambling to the corner of my bed, and flattening myself as much as possible against the wall.  
In an easy motion, Kieran pushed open the windowpane, slipped through and shut the window again. She spun around, her smile glittering even in the darkness of the room.  
My mouth fell open, and if anatomy had permitted, my jaw would have dropped all the way to the floor. I couldn't find it within myself to produce words, and instead stared at the ethereal being that had once been my sister.  
"Hello," she said as if she had just gotten home from a trip to the store. Her careful eyes were on me, watching my reaction to her. She took a few steps closer to me, and I tried to get even further from her. She smirked, "are you so terrified of your sister?" When I didn't respond, she continued; "I came to you as quickly as I could, you know. You're the first one I came and saw."  
I blinked hard, wondering if all this was an illusion.  
Kieran took to wandering around the room, touching the clothes still hanging in the closet, the bracelets and rings sitting in a porcelain dish on our vanity, and a stack of magazines on her nightstand. She came upon her books, sitting on the floor nearby her bed. With a gentle kick that came quickly and from nowhere, she knocked the books from their tall pile, into a mess on the floor. She briefly smiled, and then glanced at me.  
"You haven't changed a thing," She said.  
My strength gathered—I answered. "You've only been…dead…a few days."  
Kieran smirked, "Dead? Is that what they've been telling you? Roxie, I thought you were more mature than all of that."  
I wetted my lips with my tongue, "You're going to be buried tomorrow."  
"Is that so?" She paused for a moment, and I thought I saw—if only for a split second—a glimmer of regret in Kieran's piercing eyes. "I didn't die. I just became someone else—someone better."  
The fire ignited within me—"Shut up!" I hissed. "They _stole_ you from me!"  
"Don't say _they_. It is condescending. Particularly concerning that I _am_ one of _them." _  
"I don't even know who you are anymore…"  
"First, we were _Nosophoros_," She said, the Greek rolling off her tongue fluently. "Later, we were addressed as the_ Noseferatu, _and _la vampa…_but you know me as a _vampire._" Her eyes leveled onto me, alit with a curious fire that I had never seen before. Hey eyes were strong and sure, as well as determined and fierce. The stare—or glare?—scared me and caused a tremor to flow through my body. It was altogether terrifying to hear the word that had been all but banned from our vocabulary—that of vampire.  
Kieran had successfully transformed herself into everything that we were scare of, and the impenetrable foe we could not defeat. She was now stronger, faster and smarter than any human alive, she could do things we physically could not, and she could hear and see things our organs could not comprehend. I found myself both afraid and curious of the being that stood before me—in form, exactly like the younger sister I had lost days before, but in body and spirit, worlds apart.  
I swallowed. "You cannot come here anymore, Kieran."  
"In that, I'm afraid, you're right." She went over to the window and pressed her long fingers against the cool glass. "But I will not be completely out of sight, or out of mind." She turned her head slightly, watching me out of the corner of her eye. "You'll find me soon enough."  
"I'm not going to come looking for you," I declared, determined as ever. As far as I was concerned, my sister was dead.  
"Perhaps you won't come looking for me. I would imagine it will be something more like…joining me." She hoisted open the window frame.  
"I will _never _join you."  
"I never said," She swung one leg out the window, "that you would come willingly."  
Before I could focus on what she said, Kieran disappeared through the window and shut it silently. It was as if she had never entered the room, save for the cool chill that had settled over me. Only once the sunlight crept over the horizon did I relax on my bed. I had stared at the window all night long, my heart and head struck with fright. Once the sun rose, I knew I was safe.  
I crawled back under the covers, and slept only momentarily before I was awoken to get ready for the funeral later on that morning.


	4. Chapter 4

Almost one year later, everything had changed.  
The news cameras had left our front lawn, and the grass had grown over what they had trampled. We had planted white tulips instead of the customary yellow, and had dug up a hideous shrub under the front window. We painted the back shed and sold the bikes that had been collecting dust for years. One morning, Kieran's things from our room suddenly disappeared and reappeared on thrift store shelves. Pictures of Kieran slipped away from photo albums and frames around the house, only to be replaced with old family portraits or candid shots of Callum and myself. School ended for the summer, and then started back up again in the fall. Callum dropped all intentions of joining the National Guard, and dad muttered words—sometimes. Mother fell into the routine of crying only on Monday's when _Planet Earth_ was on. I gathered up a league of difficult courses at the community college again. I was still in pursuit of figuring out of what I was going to do with my life, despite the fact that I was several months into my sophomore year of college.  
Some friends disappeared through the whole Kieran thing. Some friends stayed. I had a couple interested boys, wondering if they could _touch_ Kieran and see what she was like, now that she was one of the creepy-crawlies. I told them to fuck off because Kieran was _dead_ and even if she had been alive, I wouldn't have allowed them to touch her anyway.  
Every night, it was a little easier to sleep. I had demanded a lock be placed on my window soon after Kieran had appeared that night, and always drew the curtains so I couldn't see what was lingering outside. Dad instinctively put up an alarm system in the house—though I'm not entirely sure even that would stop them.  
For a while after Kieran died, no one even drove at night and numbers of National Guard enrollment doubled. On the bridge nearest our house, more blockades were put up and all soldiers were handed a gun with ten silver bullets. They wore armored protection not only on their chest, but now on their necks as well. When the sun went down, their guards went up. Even when the sun was up, there was always two soldier's on duty at every post _just in case_.  
Days, weeks, and months went by without the slightest quiver of a bush, or a strange feeling going up my spine. It was as if nothing had changed, and that Kieran had simply disappeared from sight and mind.  
Slowly, everything turned back to normal. Our name fell out of the papers and other names appeared. People died (natural deaths), and others were born.  
It even got to the point where I had difficulty remembering what she sounded and smelt like.  
It was as if Kieran had never even been here at all.  
I had been presented the opportunity early on into the start of my second year at college to jump in on a lease in the apartment—which I did without much of a thought. I lived with two other girls, Beth and Sofina, who liked to study as much as they liked to party. It was a different style, but I adapted quickly and learned to fall into the swell of things, rather than cower in fear from them.  
The best part about everything was that no one noticed me anymore. I was a face in the crowd—which was great, because I was tired of being followed and asked what it was liked having a sister go over to the Dark Side. (Did she know Darth Vader? Snicker, snicker, snicker). I could walk to and from class without the slightest provocation—and it was blissful.

October- It was only after the majority of the class had trickled out of the room when I woke up and realized I was still sitting in my lecture class. With a yawn, I gathered my things, and tumbled out of the classroom.  
Outside the sun was already most of the way down, and by the time that I walked into my apartment, the sun had slipped well below the horizon.  
"Roxie!" Exclaimed Beth, jumping up from the couch, and dashing over to me, "I want you to meet someone." She grasped my hand and pulled me into the living room before I had time to even take off my jacket. "Roxie, this is Jack."  
I extended my hand to the curious fellow, my eyebrows raised in the direction of Beth as if to ask 'is he yours?' She shook her head, giggling. He certainly was delicious looking, with velvety soft skin, dark, pondering eyes and a thick layer of eyebrows. I was mostly delighted by his strong jaw-line, and the pleasant smile that accompanied it all. "Hi."  
He didn't let go of my hand as he pushed himself off the couch and stood before me—rather, _loomed_ before me. What I hadn't noticed when he was sitting on the couch was that he was a rather large young man, with wide shoulders and a tall stature that rivaled my 5'7'' frame. My eyes had to be cast upwards to look at his, soft and approachable as he looked down at me. "Hello, Roxie. Nice to meet you."  
"Ja-ack," Beth cooed from her corner, "was waiting outside the door for you when I got home from work." Her sigh was an audible song, melting at the sight of the man that seemed to have come from nowhere. Her eyes were locked on his body as she spoke, "I had no choice but to let the poor fellow in and offer him something to drink. He said no, that he would like only to wait for you."  
At this, Jack let go of my hand, and slipped them into his jeans pocket anyway. He chuckled lightly, shooting glances in the direction of Beth, who couldn't have been more enamored.  
I shrugged off my backpack and tossed it on the couch behind me. "I'm sorry, Jack, but—have we met before?" I couldn't remember him, but at the same time he felt distinctly familiar to me.  
Beth almost wailed from the couch, "So you've never even met?!" This, according to her, meant she still had a chance.  
Again, the light chuckle from Jack. He shot one more glance at Beth, before settling his attention back to me. "Ah, no, I'm afraid we haven't. But, I have heard a lot about you."  
I swallowed, my thoughts immediately reverting to Kieran. I hadn't told Beth or Sofina that the doomed daughter had been, in fact, my sister. "Oh?" I asked, trying to be casual. "Good things, I hope…"  
He smiled, "The best things you could want to hear."  
Beth melted into a puddle, swooning at the thought.  
I backed up towards the kitchen, taking my coat off in the process. "Are you sure you wouldn't like something to drink? Eat?" I peered into the refrigerator and frowned. "Uh, well. Not _eat_, per se. But you could nibble on crumbs, I guess, if you'd like."  
He shook his head, "Thank you, but no. I had just gotten back from eating myself when I came to your apartment and," he glanced back at Beth. She stared at him as if he were God himself. "And Beth," She squeaked, her hands flying to her mouth with the delight at hearing her name, "Has been all too kind and offered me more than enough."  
"Okay." I shut the refrigerator and crossed my arms. "How can I help you, then?"  
"Today, all I need from you is to simply take this envelope from my keeping." He pulled a small envelope outside of his breast pocket and handed it over to me.  
It looked completely inconspicuous, but all the same I raised my eyebrows and protested. "Who was this from?"  
"An admirer. He's seen you from afar and…" he laughed.  
I turned over the envelope in my hands. There was no writing on it, and whatever was inside was very small. "And there isn't like, anthrax or some weird shit in here is there?"  
"No anthrax."  
I slipped the envelope into the back of my pants, "Is that all?"  
"For today, yes."  
"Right," I gestured him to the door, and he went without further command. "Thanks for the letter, I guess." I said as he stepped outside.  
"You're very welcome. I look forward to seeing you soon, Roxie."  
"Uh-huh," I shut the door without any more from him and turned to see Beth gazing longingly at the front door. And she _wondered_ why she didn't have a boyfriend. I sat down at a desk, and pulled out the contents of the letter. Inside, written on something no bigger than a note card was; _I found you._


End file.
